Magic Online Power Nine Owners

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

For those who own a set of power nine online or bought into vintage...if you could go back to the release of the moxen would you still buy in?

[oufanforever]

Yes I still would. My schedule does not allow me to play many tournaments, but I would still buy in just so I can play casual vintage games.

[Chubby Rain]

I would. It's been very valuable for testing, both in dailies and in the Tournament Practice room.

[evouga]

I only very recently bought into MTGO and so far have no regrets. The practice room is a bit of a mixed bag, but I'll happily pay $2 to play opponents that are courteous and competent (and often much better than me) any time I feel like it.

The two minor frustrations I've had are 1) the shittiness of the MTGO client and 2) the fact that tournament support is so poor -- even the prime-time Vintage queue at 9:30 PM only seems to fire 10-20% of the time. The fact that the prizes are useless M15 boosters and useless QPs likely has something to do with it.

[Coopes]

I would, but I also wish there was more of an effort from pros/streamers/randy to help fire events/dailys. They are just playing in the vsl and it kind of feels like a " i got mine, so whatever " kind of deal. Maybe i'm just complaining.

Either way, playing Vintage has been a blast

[Shock Wave]

Absolutely would still buy in.

[The Atog Lord]

I'm honestly not sure I would have bought in. That isn't a simple question to answer. I bought in when Worth lied about the end of VMA drafting. Since then, using MODO has been an exercise in frustration and being poorly treated by anti-consumer policies. Their reimbursement policies are an embarrassment, punishing you for their own programming mistakes. I've talked to two good friends about whether they should buy into MODO. In both cases, while I would personally like to see more friends online, I cannot in good conscience recommend buy into MODO. At the same time, I've seen a number of players who began on MODO Vintage with enthusiasm, only to stop or reduce their play because of the myriad problems with the system.

[Coopes]

I'm honestly not sure I would have bought in. That isn't a simple question to answer. I bought in when Worth lied about the end of VMA drafting. Since then, using MODO has been an exercise in frustration and being poorly treated by anti-consumer policies. Their reimbursement policies are an embarrassment, punishing you for their own programming mistakes. I've talked to two good friends about whether they should buy into MODO. In both cases, while I would personally like to see more friends online, I cannot in good conscience recommend buy into MODO. At the same time, I've seen a number of players who began on MODO Vintage with enthusiasm, only to stop or reduce their play because of the myriad problems with the system.

This was well said and how I probably realistically feel. Unfortunately, I can't play paper magic at all and my only outlet is MTGO. It's not a great situation to be in, but I can only have faith at this point if I want to play magic.

[evouga]

What did Worth say about the drafting schedule that was untrue?

[boggyb]

Cockatrice isn't bad. Give it a shot if you haven't, yet. There are about a dozen regulars on there who are quite good, and the play experience is much better and much closer to in-person magic than MODO is. I've found that successfully using it is just a matter of blocking the trolls and picking/choosing your opponents so you don't waste time on somebody who's going to regularly make obvious blunders.

Honestly though the troll factor is pretty high, and only about 30% of the Vintage regulars on there play at an advanced level. A bit of a slog at first, weeding out the trolls, but very useful after a while.

[Smmenen]

I would wait to prices fell a bit more, but yes. 

I didn't buy them for short-term gain, but long term use.

[Hrishi]

Cockatrice isn't bad. Give it a shot if you haven't, yet. There are about a dozen regulars on there who are quite good, and the play experience is much better and much closer to in-person magic than MODO is. I've found that successfully using it is just a matter of blocking the trolls and picking/choosing your opponents so you don't waste time on somebody who's going to regularly make obvious blunders.

Honestly though the troll factor is pretty high, and only about 30% of the Vintage regulars on there play at an advanced level. A bit of a slog at first, weeding out the trolls, but very useful after a while.

Easiest thing to do is to have a friend list full of people from here, so it's easy to organize a game/testing session/whatever, rather than playing with random people on the client.

[Ahab1248]

I absolutely would. The ability to play Vintage Magic more or less on demand has been a fantastic experience. I bought in without the expectation to regularly play for prizes and therefore have not been exposed to the prize support and tournament reimbursement issues some users mentioned, and while the client crashes somewhat too often for my taste, having to log back into a program is significantly less inconvenient than many of the drives I have taken to search for a game of paper vintage. My only concern is that I hope there continues to be enough interest in Vintage on MODO that it continues to be easy to find opponents on a regular basis.

[Twiedel]

I would wait to prices fell a bit more, but yes. 

I didn't buy them for short-term gain, but long term use.

+1

[thecrav]

What did Worth say about the drafting schedule that was untrue?

TL;DR:
In the VMA announcement, they said that VMA would be available on MTGO until KTK came out.
Weeks later, they announced that VMA drafts were ending on the next downtime (so the next tuesday) - As a result, prices spike.
People are outraged
WotC employees say that it's the player's fault for misunderstanding. WotC never said drafts would be available until KTK!
WotC decides it was a dick move and goes back to what people thought WotC had said: Drafts until KTK. Prices settle again.
Now people are mad that they bought in well above where they should've. As an example, the following is the price data for the first couple weeks of VMA being available:

[The Atog Lord]

Right, that's a great explanation.

Worth announced that VMA drafting would end on a given date.

Then, soon after, he announces that he was lying (though he didn't use that exact term) and that drafting would continue longer.

I, and others, bought in in response to the first announcement. Turns out, we were lied to by Wizards and thus tricked into buying in.

[Templar]

Still working on my power/duals, just so I have the ability to play on line when I want.  Not interested in speculating on the market, just need enough to play.

[Hrishi]

I had bought in earlier when prices were lower. A combination of events not firing and me requiring to get cards before worlds next month caused me to sell my online collection for paper cards. I admit I miss being able to play vintage at any time, but with events not firing and the client being absolutely horrendous, maybe getting the paper cards was a better move?

Watch me regret this decision 6 months down the road when power is stupidly expensive online.

[boxian]

I would. I was waiting for them to come down, the no-draft announcement came and they spiked and I did not buy in. They were announced to be draftable for the original time frame and they dropped and I went ahead and bought in at that point. I wish I had bought more, but it was hard to convince myself to even buy that much - there are just too many things that are necessary to be able to play decks. And I still don't have the Wastelands I need to play my preferred deck.

I really want to stream vintage and with the VSL, I have a new goal of trying to be a big enough name and streamer of vintage to get an invite (unlikely). And to not capitalize on the opportunity to buy in while prices are nearly reasonable was much higher risk than to continue doing what I have been doing for 10 years - waiting for MTGO to get better. It's the ugly baby that we are left with, it seems, though I hope that now more people are complaining, there will be more change. And with the release of KTK on MTGO, I will be able to get fetchlands which will allow me to maybe build a full deck besides dredge.

On the flip side, as The Atog Lord says, I can't recommend others buy in, which is a bitter pill to swallow.

[Smmenen]

Aren't prices still incredibly low?  If you haven't bought it, now is as good a time as any.

EDIT:

Ok, people are asking a serious question about Magic Online, and since someone on twitter directed people here, representing my view as supporting the program, let me explain exactly what I think of it, and Vintage on it.

First of all, there is no doubt that the program has had and continues to have bugs.  The good news is that most of the bugs I encountered in July are now fixed.  Things like Necro, Tangle Wire, etc are fixed.

Second, There are alot of things not to like about the program -- the store, the trading capabilities, and how they really control the marketplace.  But, it's alot better than I remember, alot better, in many respects, than programs like MWS and Cockatrice, and it has a lot of nice functions, like allowing you to replay and restream games.  Yes, the program interface is not ideal, but I actually think it's better than when I first downloaded the program several years ago.  

Third, Wizards has not done a great job of really supporting Vintage as a full bloom tournament format on Magic Online.  The prizes for the DEs suck, the timing sucks, and they killed Premiere Events, which we couldn't fire (except the one I organized) because the times sucked.

That said, that is not an inherent flaw in the program, but a fixable thing that has to do with management.   The problem, as I see it, is that Wizards is not really the best TO in the world.   In the real world, wizards doesn't sanction most events -- TOs do with Wizards permission.

If we could collectively figure out some ideal times for high level tournaments, like we do in the real world, I think we could eventually get Wizards behind that.  If I can get Time Vault fixed, I'm sure I can help get that done  

There are a TON of recommendations I have for improving the program, but ultimately, Wizards needs to let go of some control they have and figure out how to open source and open up the program so that it's easier for other folks to organize tournaments, analyze data, etc.

At some point, maybe early next year, I'll write a long article with my wish list for functions I'd like to see.  For example, I love being able to review previously played games, but it would be even better if I could do something similar for testing purposes -- what if you and a test partner could go back and replay a game at a very specific juncture, and take a different line of play, much like you can do with Chess?   That shouldn't be that difficult to do, and would be huge for testing.  

Also, I think Wizards should open up the data sets more.  There is no excuse whatsoever for not posting every daily result decklists.  That's just lazy.  Why can't we also get good data analysis?  Like % of Vintage games won on the play v. the draw?  etc.  

If you are using Magic Online to try to play big tournaments, you are going to be disappointed -- at least in the near future.  

But if you are using Magic Online to feed your craving for pick up games with high caliber players when you have a spare hour, or to test for tournaments, or to experiment, it's glorious.  

There is no doubt that the quality of the players I play in the 2-man queues is higher than the average player I face in the first 3-4 rounds of any local or even regional tournament.  It's great. 

Anyone considering whether to buy in should take a long term view.   We don't know when Wizards will reprint power nine.  The program has to improve over time.  It can't degrade much.  And if you want to be able to compete in Vintage on Magic Online, you should buy in now.  Hence my comment about taking a long term view of the program.  

[boxian]

The prices are still just on the other side of unreasonable in my opinion. The market is what it is, but I ultimately don't like renting these cards from WotC and paying a premium to a 3rd party for it. That said, you can still get the majority of the cards you want for significantly less than you could in paper. I have jumped onto the long term view, and I just think there are some frustrating business practices that make me more reticent than I would like to be.

I agree with the majority of what you're saying though, which is what caused me to jump on the train at this point in time rather than before.

If the early evening DE was an hour later, I would be playing in it every night without a schedule conflict or problem. As is, it is very hard to get to even on the East Coast.

As far as data sets go - Mark Rosewater has talked on his tumblr about the idea that there are "tools" (his words) that would allow players to solve metagames and that WotC wants to slow that down or prevent it by bottlenecking the information. I believe that there's a spreadsheet that one could make to keep track of wins vs particular decks and how you sideboard, but the best way to set that up escapes me currently.

[Smmenen]

The prices are still just on the other side of unreasonable in my opinion. The market is what it is, but I ultimately don't like renting these cards from WotC and paying a premium to a 3rd party for it. That said, you can still get the majority of the cards you want for significantly less than you could in paper. I have jumped onto the long term view, and I just think there are some frustrating business practices that make me more reticent than I would like to be.

I should note that the prices are uniformly lower than I paid for them. I didn't do the calculations, but I paid probably close to $200 more than you would right now. 

I don't see how they can go much lower. 

EDIT: this gets to Rich's complaint about Worth "lying."  I'm glad that they decided to continue to let people draft VMA, as that has helped lower the barrier to entry.   Remember Tweidel's price predictions?  Well, we are FAR lower than that. 

I agree with the majority of what you're saying though, which is what caused me to jump on the train at this point in time rather than before.

If the early evening DE was an hour later, I would be playing in it every night without a schedule conflict or problem. As is, it is very hard to get to even on the East Coast.

I have a similar problem -- if the last DE was an hour later, I'd be able to play in it more.  But I am never home by 6:30 pacific time.  I am often home between 730-8.

As far as data sets go - Mark Rosewater has talked on his tumblr about the idea that there are "tools" (his words) that would allow players to solve metagames and that WotC wants to slow that down or prevent it by bottlenecking the information. I believe that there's a spreadsheet that one could make to keep track of wins vs particular decks and how you sideboard, but the best way to set that up escapes me currently.

That's terrible from my POV as formats like Vintage would greatly benefit from that kind of set of tools, even if Standard might suffer.  

There should be datasets that allow us to empirically see the strength of tactics.  Far from "solving" the metagame, I think it would advance it.  

[diophan]

I really don't understand the complains about the DE payout now that it's on parity with every other constructed format. The packs are not "useless"; sell them to one of the many bots and even if you're not amazing you can go infinite with dailies. Sure, you bought the power 9 once, but everyone playing constructed has to buy new cards all the time, so it's unreasonable to say that your deck costs more so you should get better payouts.

It is troubling that the dailies are getting harder to fire. It would be great if we could organize specific dailies to have people join and get those to fire consistently. I don't really think it is WOTC's fault that they are not firing though, we need more people queuing!

[boxian]

Steve, you're preaching to the choir about more data. The entire appeal of Dredge to me is that it's just a math equation to be solved which as you and Kevin pointed out, is and would benefit greatly from just a bunch more reps.

diophan is also right though. I was just in the 930pm EST DE queue and we got 8 people before time ran out so it didn't fire.

I think that the community has done enough to show that it isn't a turn 1 format, but I think the price is still keeping people away, whether it's in the cost of the P9 or the supporting cards, such as Wasteland.

I wish that WotC would allow players to buy but not draft packs of every set they've released on MTGO and switched the current trade system to something like the Steam Marketplace. But one of those would be a very terrifying overhaul of the secondary market and the other requires a lot of programming work and the tacit admission that cards are worth money which may not be okay because of whatever outdated gambling laws exist.

[enderfall]

Sure, you bought the power 9 once, but everyone playing constructed has to buy new cards all the time, so it's unreasonable to say that your deck costs more so you should get better payouts.

I think your understanding of people's complaints on this matter is misguided. No one is advocating that they "give us more stuff for nothing because we deserve it". All we are advocating is that they allow us to pay more than 6 tix for entry such that they can give us better prizes.

[diophan]

Sure, you bought the power 9 once, but everyone playing constructed has to buy new cards all the time, so it's unreasonable to say that your deck costs more so you should get better payouts.

I think your understanding of people's complaints on this matter is misguided. No one is advocating that they "give us more stuff for nothing because we deserve it". All we are advocating is that they allow us to pay more than 6 tix for entry such that they can give us better prizes.

My apologies. I basically use dailies as a way to test my deck against opponents playing real decks to practice for paper events. As long as I'm not hemorrhaging money it's not personally a problem, but I can see how people would want higher stakes. Here again though, one premier event fired the entire time they were running, so while it might not be great, I don't really blame WotC for discontinuing them and focusing on dailies for vintage.

[enderfall]

Here again though, one premier event fired the entire time they were running, so while it might not be great, I don't really blame WotC for discontinuing them and focusing on dailies for vintage.

The PE's failed to fire because they were right smack dab in the middle of the 2 evening DE's. If WotC actually wanted them to fire, they could've found a much more suitable time for them. In all honesty, I think they were evaluating eliminating the PE's universally before VMA was released, they just needed the "perfect excuse" to say that they are universally a failure since no one wanted to play Vintage with better prize support. I guarantee that if they had moved the time back 1 hour and moved the 6:30pm EST DE to some other time during the day that would not interfere with the PE, it would have fired on a regular basis, but alas, WotC wanted it to fail from the beginning.

[fsecco]

I think the problem with the tournaments and payout, etc, could be easily solved by player-organized tournaments. We've had a few, but not everyone is jumping in that idea. I'm really looking forward to the big 64 player TMD tournament on the 19th to see if that'll work (even if I may not be able to pay that day...)

[diophan]

Here again though, one premier event fired the entire time they were running, so while it might not be great, I don't really blame WotC for discontinuing them and focusing on dailies for vintage.

I guarantee that if they had moved the time back 1 hour and moved the 6:30pm EST DE to some other time during the day that would not interfere with the PE, it would have fired on a regular basis, but alas, WotC wanted it to fail from the beginning.

Your point about the timing is fair. However, Premier events have worse EV than dailies, so I don't know why you think WotC wanted them to fail. They might be inept sometimes, but I don't think they're malign.

[enderfall]

Here again though, one premier event fired the entire time they were running, so while it might not be great, I don't really blame WotC for discontinuing them and focusing on dailies for vintage.

I guarantee that if they had moved the time back 1 hour and moved the 6:30pm EST DE to some other time during the day that would not interfere with the PE, it would have fired on a regular basis, but alas, WotC wanted it to fail from the beginning.

Your point about the timing is fair. However, Premier events have worse EV than dailies, so I don't know why you think WotC wanted them to fail. They might be inept sometimes, but I don't think they're malign.

Vintage PE's had higher a EV than DE's, BY FAR, so your point is only valid for Standard and Modern PE's. Besides, it's not so much that they wanted them (as in ALL PE events in every format) to fail, but rather they were already planning to phase them out with leagues coming later this year (supposedly), and if Vintage PE's were actually popular, they'd be in quite the quandary to end up cancelling all PE's when Vintage was successful. there is no way they woke up in mid-August and randomly decided to cancel all PE's... that plan was in the works for a while if I'd guesstimate.